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ihe Conflagration Hazard 

Western Possibilities 

of Sweeping Fires Like Those of 

Minnesota and Canada 



By GEORGE C. JOY, Washington Forest Fire Association 
It 

(An address delivered at Annual Conference, Western Forestry and 
Conservation Association, Portland, Oregon, November 25, 1922) 

Published by the Oregon State Board of Forestry 



We are not yet on top of the fire problem. Once well 
.started, wiih weather conditions favorable to spread of fire, 
control is always difficult; sometimes impossible. 

A review of what has happened in tJie past should sound a 
warning for the future. 

Adequately to safeguard our mature forests and allow vur 
cut-over lands to reforest, much greater prevention effort must 
be exerted. 

While every citizen has an individual responsibility in this 
matter it remains for nation and state through example as well 
as through adequate laws and their enforcement to effect such 
a system of fire prevention as ivill guarantee against conflagra- 
tions with resulting loss of life and property. 

The Oregon State Board of Forestry requests careful con- 
sideration of Mr. Joy's address which follows. It deals with a 
problem of vital innportance to every citizen of our state. 



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The fire season of 1922 will, in the annals of forest protec- 
tion of the Pacific Northwest, be placed in the same category 
as the fire season of 1902— the year of the "Dark Day," 1910, 
and 1912 ; years in which fires caused a large loss of life and 
great damage to timber and other property. 

From the standpoint of the weather, both as to severity and 
duration of continuous dry spells, this season is without a 
parallel. The loss in life and timber is a great deal less than 
in any one of the other three bad years, but more money was 
spent in forest protection and in fighting forest fires than in 
any other year. The loss to logging operators is the greatest 
it has ever been. The area burned over is exceeded by only 
one year, that of 1902. 

This season was different from the others. Things unlooked 
for, and which have not occurred before, happened this time. 
With the litter on the forest floor soaked through, and all 
forest debris as wet as water could make it, almost out of a 
rainstorm came the "east wind," dryer than the driest ever 
known; and, before any one could realize the full portent of 
the rapidly changed conditions, numerous fires were started 
and old ones fanned out of control. In western Washington, 
six days after a heavy rain had fallen, over 100,000 acres of 
land had been burned over and around $1,000,000 worth of 
property had been destroyed. One of these fires covered an 
area comprising 25,000 acres and caused a property damage 
of $453,000. 

Real conflagration weather, the kind out of which large 
crown fires develop, prevailed on May 30 and 31. That the 
loss and damage were not greater was due to the fact that there 
was not a large number of fires started. The fires that were 
started were impossible of control until weather conditions 
changed. 

In 1912, on May 12 and 13, an almost exact parallel of 
weather conditions prevailed as did this year on the thirtieth 
and thirty-first of the same month, except that in 1912 there 
had been a longer dry period preceding the two bad days. 
Such weather conditions have prevailed in the past and it is 
certain that the same combination of forces of nature will 
cause them to occur again. 

The amount of money expended for fire prevention and 
suppression by forest protective agencies, companies and indi- 
vidual timber owners is far in excess of what it has been for 
any other season, but there were compensations for these 

f JAN J!^6 1923 ' 



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^ 3 

expenditures in the result obtained. It was demonstrated thai 
'^ in ordinary summer weather, such as prevailed from June 1 to 

^[ August 10, that it is possible to check and bring under control 

~- almost any fire if proper and adequate methods are employed. 

The idea which some people have that fire can not be sup- 
pressed without rain is fallacious. It is only by more intensive 
patrol, by the adoption of and compliance with every reasonable 
regulation, and by the exercise of the utmost vigilance on the 
part of persons entering the forests, that losses from forest 
fires can be minimized, and cut-over lands protected and 
allowed to reforest. I)i no other way can fives on such lands 
he prevented. Burning slashings during any part of the fire 
season ivheyi east icinds prevail is extremely hazardous and 
dangerous. 

Disregard of these instructions is almost certain to some day 
bring disaster to the people living in the timbered districts 
of Oregon, Washington, northern Idaho and British Columbia ; 
a disaster which might surpass that of the San Francisco 
earthquake, or any of the great fires which have brought 
death and devastation over large areas in both eastern and 
western states and Canada during the past one hundred years. 

I do not like to play the role of one foreboding evil events, 
but after having passed through the experience of this and 
other similar seasons, and taken in connection with great fires 
to be found chronicled in books, and in the forests themselves, 
I feel impelled to voice a warning and to point out the possi- 
bility and danger of this part of the United States being 
visited by a conflagration as great as any of the others. All 
that was lacking to bring this about this year was for the same 
kind of weather to have prevailed during the first week in 
August as did prevail the last week in May. Only the caprice 
of the weather saved us from such disaster. 

In order that every one may fully appreciate the signifi- 
cance and danger such a situation may some day hold in store 
for us, it might be well for me to give a resume of the most 
destructive fires which have occurred in the United States 
and Canada during the past century. 

In October, 1825, the Miramichi fire in Maine and New 
Brunswick burned over an area of 3,000,000 acres, and 160 peo- 
ple were burned to death. In 1846 the Yaquina fire in Oregon 
covered 450,000 acres. In May, 1863. the Pontiac fire in 
Quebec burned over 1,600,000 acres. In September, 1868, the 
Coos fire in Oregon covered 300.000 acres. In October, 1871, 
the Peshtigo fire in Wisconsin burned over 1,280,000 acres, 



and 1,500 people lost their lives. In the same month and year 
the fire in Michigan covered 2,000,000 acres. In 1876 the Big 
Horn fire in Wyoming burned over 500,000 acres. 

In September, 1881, the Michigan fire covered 1,000,000 
acres, caused a property loss of $2,000,000, and 138 people 
were burned. In September 1894, the Hinckley fire in Minne- 
sota burned over 160,000 acres and 418 people lost their lives. 
In September, 1902, the Columbia fire in Oregon and Washing- 
ton covered an area of 600,000 acres, caused a property loss of 
$12,700,000, and eighteen people were burned. In August, 
1910, the great Idaho fire occurred and burned over 2,000,000 
acres in Idaho and Montana, with eighty-five lives lost. In 
October of the same year the Baudette fire in Minnesota and 
Ontario covered 300,000 acres, and the loss of lives numbered 
forty-two. 

In August, 1908, the town of Fernie, British Columbia, with 
a population of 5,000, was destroyed and nearly one hundred 
people lost their lives. The total loss on all property was 
around $7,000,000; 64,000 acres were burned over, and 900,- 
000,000 feet of timber burned. The United States sent fifteen 
carloads of food and $50,000 for relief. 

In the northwestern Minnesota fire of October 12, 1918, 
400 people were burned to death ; 2,000 more or less seriously 
burned ; 13,000 were rendered homeless, and twenty-six towns 
and villages were partially or completely destroyed. The 
area covered was 2,000 square miles. A fair estimate of 
the property loss can be based on the statements made by local 
officials of the relief commission at the time, to the effect that 
approximately $5,000,000 would be needed to properly meet 
the requirements of temporary assistance, and probably $20,- 
000,000 for a semblance of permanent rehabilitation. This 
was not merely one great fire, but fiftv to seventy-five or 
more, which united and were fanned to huge proportions by 
the wind, and then, with the increasing energy developed by 
the consequent violent air movement attending rapid combus- 
tion on such an enormous scale, advanced over vast areas with 
almost incredible speed. Much of the area burned over was 
cut-over lands — with second growth timber, small towns and 
sites for growing communities. 

The conditions leading up to the Michigan, Hinckley, Colum- 
bia, northwestern Minnesota and great Idaho fires were the 
same in each instance, and were almost an exact counterpart 
of the conditions as they existed this year in the Pacific North- 
west. These conditions are best described by a writer giving 



a history of the Hinckley fire in MinnesoUi, in September, 
1894. We read that "There was great lack of rainfall, high 
temperature, dry air and lijjfht winds were persistent for a 
period of nearly four months, resultinjj: in parched earth, crops 
destroyed, vegetation of all kinds dried up and down timber 
and brush but tinder for the match. Fires had been started 
in August in various ])laces throughout the timber regions of 
Minnesota and smouldered or sprung into life as the winds 
arose. Such was the condition on the first day of September, 
which ushered in high winds that fanned the fires into fierce 
flames; themselves also creating an upward draft, increasing 
with the increase of the fierceness of the fires which caused 
such destruction of life and property." 

The conditions herein described were exactly the same as 
the conditions during the Columbia fire in September, 1902, 
and the same as prevailed here this year, except that this 
season did not wind up with a strong wind; but if the wind 
had come as it did in 1902 the Douglas fir belt in western 
Oregon. Washington and British Columbia would have been a 
raging inferno. There were between one and two thousand 
fires — little and big — burning on logged-off land and in the 
timber, on August 1 of this year. The onlv districts which 
would have escaped were those where no fires had been 
started. Owing to the large areas of logged-off land covered 
with so much combustible material it would have been possible, 
and also probable, for some of the fires to run for forty or 
fifty miles. When these conditions prevail fire breaks and 
fire fighting are useless, and what a tale of woe would have 
been told after it. 

With our cut-over lands dotted here and there with settlers' 
homes and small towns located in districts where the hazard is 
great the loss in life and property would have been appalling. 

The historians of the Hinckley, Columbia and Idaho fires 
relate that the wind was strong enough to tear the roofs from 
houses and barns and to lift persons from the ground and hurl 
them short distances through the air. Refugees were driven in 
all directions : men, women and children were cooked on the 
ground ; while homes, industries and towns were laid in 
ruins and the whole nation was moved to give succor to the 
unfortunates. 

Such a history could be repeated here if we do not use 
greater preventive methods, as the fire hazard on the Pacific 
Coast is growing worse. The potentialities have ahimj/s been 
here for a catastrophic combination of weather conditions and, 



V ,' 



when appearing in conjunction with a fire situation as critical 
as existed on August 1 of this year, will bring disaster and 
ruin to the whole community. 

Every one who has investigated the subject and given it 
thought knows that all of our fir forests have followed fires. 
There are no trees here 2,000 and 3,000 years old, as are the 
giant sequoias of California. Here there are large areas of 
dense stands of timber of about the same age — from 300 to 
500 years old. Charred material is to be found everywhere 
throughout these forests. This would indicate that at about 
the time this continent was discovered by Columbus the fir 
region was one day a roaring furnace. 

The great storm on the Olympic Peninsula in January, 1921, 
where no such storm had occurred for at least 250 years previ- 
ous thereto, is a warning to us that cataclysms of the forces 
of nature will cause great conflagrations to occur again unless 
civilization makes conditions safer. Thus far civilization has 
worked to aggravate the situation. 

Soon after the Columbia fire occurred in 1902 I had occasion 
to visit the devasted area on the North Fork of the Lewis River 
in Cowlitz County. A little spot in a settler's clearing in the 
forest was pointed out to me as the place where eleven men, 
women and children had burned to death. Two or three miles 
further up the road I was shown the spot where the mail 
carrier on his round of duty had met the same fate. For miles 
in every direction stood a blackened, dead forest. It is still 
there, a mute evidence of a destruction the import of which is 
nationwide. These incidents created a profound impression, 
leaving a feeling with me that the same thing would happen 
again unless adequate measures were adopted to prevent it. 

Nine years later I went through an experience with a great 
crown fire, and I must add that until you have seen one — seen 
the huge, red streamers fling themselves up into the sky and 
the dense rolling clouds of black smoke rush upward toward 
the heavens — you can not fully appreciate "how powerless is 
the hand of man to stay the forces of nature when she asserts 
herself with all her might." 



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